[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, at the end of each volumefor those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before makingan entire meal of them. D.W.]

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1. Preface The Life of Montaigne The Letters of Montaigne

PREFACE.

The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency inour literature--a library edition of the Essays of Montaigne. This greatFrench writer deserves to be regarded as a classic, not only in the landof his birth, but in all countries and in all literatures. His Essays,which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of hisproductions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Baconand Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, asHallam observes, the Frenchman's literary importance largely results fromthe share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval andsubsequent. But, at the same time, estimating the value and rank of theessayist, we are not to leave out of the account the drawbacks and thecircumstances of the period: the imperfect state of education, thecomparative scarcity of books, and the limited opportunities ofintellectual intercourse. Montaigne freely borrowed of others, and hehas found men willing to borrow of him as freely. We need not wonder atthe reputation which he with seeming facility achieved. He was, withoutbeing aware of it, the leader of a new school in letters and morals. Hisbook was different from all others which were at that date in the world.It diverted the ancient currents of thought into new channels. It toldits readers, with unexampled frankness, what its writer's opinion wasabout men and things, and threw what must have been a strange kind of newlight on many matters but darkly understood. Above all, the essayistuncased himself, and made his intellectual and physical organism publicproperty. He took the world into his confidence on all subjects. Hisessays were a sort of literary anatomy, where we get a diagnosis of thewriter's mind, made by himself at different levels and under a largevariety of operating influences.

Of all egotists, Montaigne, if not the greatest, was the mostfascinating, because, perhaps, he was the least affected and mosttruthful. What he did, and what he had professed to do, was to dissecthis mind, and show us, as best he could, how it was made, and whatrelation it bore to external objects. He investigated his mentalstructure as a schoolboy pulls his watch to pieces, to examine themechanism of the works; and the result, accompanied by illustrationsabounding with originality and force, he delivered to his fellow-men in abook.

Eloquence, rhetorical effect, poetry, were alike remote from his design.He did not write from necessity, scarcely perhaps for fame. But hedesired to leave France, nay, and the world, something to be rememberedby, something which should tell what kind of a man he was--what he felt,thought, suffered--and he succeeded immeasurably, I apprehend, beyond hisexpectations.

It was reasonable enough that Montaigne should expect for his work acertain share of celebrity in Gascony, and even, as time went on,throughout France; but it is scarcely probable that he foresaw how hisrenown was to become world-wide; how he was to occupy an almost uniqueposition as a man of letters and a moralist; how the Essays would beread, in all the principal languages of Europe, by millions ofintelligent human beings, who never heard of Perigord or the League, andwho are in doubt, if they are questioned, whether the author lived in thesixteenth or the eighteenth century. This is true fame. A man of geniusbelongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature,which is always everywhere the same.

The text of these volumes is taken from the first edition of Cotton'sversion, printed in 3 vols. 8vo, 1685-6, and republished in 1693, 1700,1711, 1738, and 1743, in the same number of volumes and the same size.In the earliest impression the errors of the press are corrected merelyas far as page 240 of the first volume, and all the editions follow oneanother. That of 1685-6 was the only one which the translator lived tosee. He died in 1687, leaving behind him an interesting and little-knowncollection of poems, which appeared posthumously, 8vo, 1689.

It was considered imperative to correct Cotton's translation by a carefulcollation with the 'variorum' edition of the original, Paris, 1854,4 vols. 8vo or 12mo, and parallel passages from Florin's earlierundertaking have occasionally been inserted at the foot of the page. ALife of the Author and all his recovered Letters, sixteen in number, havealso been given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely bedoubted that it is in a purely fragmentary state. To do more thanfurnish a sketch of the leading incidents in Montaigne's life seemed, inthe presence of Bayle St. John's charming and able biography, an attemptas difficult as it was useless.

The besetting sin of both Montaigne's translators seems to have been apropensity for reducing his language and phraseology to the language andphraseology of the age and country to which they belonged, and, moreover,inserting paragraphs and words, not here and there only, but constantlyand habitually, from an evident desire and view to elucidate orstrengthen their author's meaning. The result has generally beenunfortunate; and I have, in the case of all these interpolations onCotton's part, felt bound, where I did not cancel them, to throw themdown into the notes, not thinking it right that Montaigne should beallowed any longer to stand sponsor for what he never wrote; andreluctant, on the other hand, to suppress the intruding matter entirely,where it appeared to possess a value of its own.

Nor is redundancy or paraphrase the only form of transgression in Cotton,for there are places in his author which he thought proper to omit, andit is hardly necessary to say that the restoration of all such matter tothe text was considered essential to its integrity and completeness.

My warmest thanks are due to my father, Mr Registrar Hazlitt, the authorof the well-known and excellent edition of Montaigne published in 1842,for the important assistance which he has rendered to me in verifying andretranslating the quotations, which were in a most corrupt state, and ofwhich Cotton's English versions were singularly loose and inexact, andfor the zeal with which he has co-operated with me in collating theEnglish text, line for line and word for word, with the best Frenchedition.

By the favour of Mr F. W. Cosens, I have had by me, while at work on thissubject, the copy of Cotgrave's Dictionary, folio, 1650, which belongedto Cotton. It has his autograph and copious MSS. notes, nor is it toomuch to presume that it is the very book employed by him in histranslation.W. C. H.KENSINGTON, November 1877.

BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAP.

I. That men by various ways arrive at the same end.

II. Of Sorrow.

III. That our affections carry themselves beyond us.

IV. That the soul discharges her passions upon false objects, where the true are wanting.

V. Whether the governor of a place besieged ought himself to go out to parley.

VI. That the hour of parley is dangerous.

VII. That the intention is judge of our actions

VIII. Of idleness.

IX. Of liars.

X. Of quick or slow speech.

XI. Of prognostications.

XII. Of constancy.

XIII. The ceremony of the interview of princes.

XIV. That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort that is not in reason to be defended.

XV. Of the punishment of cowardice.

XVI. A proceeding of some ambassadors.

XVII. Of fear.

XVIII. That men are not to judge of our happiness till after death.

XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die.

XX. Of the force of imagination.

XXI. That the profit of one man is the damage of another.

XXII. Of custom, and that we should not easily change a law received.

XXIII. Various events from the same counsel.

XXIV. Of pedantry.

XXV. Of the education of children.

XXVI. That it is folly to measure truth and error by our own capacity.

XXVII. Of friendship.

XXVIII. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie.

XXIX. Of moderation.

XXX. Of cannibals.

XXXI. That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances.

XXXII. That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life.

XXXIII. That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of reason.

XXXIV. Of one defect in our government.

XXXV. Of the custom of wearing clothes.

XXXVI. Of Cato the Younger.

XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing.

XXXVIII. Of solitude.

XXXIX. A consideration upon Cicero.

XL. That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.

XLI. Not to communicate a man's honour.

XLII. Of the inequality amongst us.

XLIII. Of sumptuary laws.

XLIV. Of sleep.

XLV. Of the battle of Dreux.

XLVI. Of names.

XLVII. Of the uncertainty of our judgment.

XLVIII. Of war-horses, or destriers.

XLIX. Of ancient customs.

L. Of Democritus and Heraclitus.

LI. Of the vanity of words.

LII. Of the parsimony of the Ancients.

LIII. Of a saying of Caesar.

LIV. Of vain subtleties.

LV. Of smells.

LVI. Of prayers.

LVII. Of age.

THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE

[This is translated freely from that prefixed to the 'variorum' Parisedition, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo. This biography is the more desirable thatit contains all really interesting and important matter in the journal ofthe Tour in Germany and Italy, which, as it was merely written underMontaigne's dictation, is in the third person, is scarcely worthpublication, as a whole, in an English dress.]

The author of the Essays was born, as he informs us himself, betweeneleven and twelve o'clock in the day, the last of February 1533, at thechateau of St. Michel de Montaigne. His father, Pierre Eyquem, esquire,was successively first Jurat of the town of Bordeaux (1530), Under-Mayor1536, Jurat for the second time in 1540, Procureur in 1546, and atlength Mayor from 1553 to 1556. He was a man of austere probity, who had"a particular regard for honour and for propriety in his person andattire . . . a mighty good faith in his speech, and a conscience anda religious feeling inclining to superstition, rather than to the otherextreme."[Essays, ii. 2.] Pierre Eyquem bestowed great care on theeducation of his children, especially on the practical side of it. Toassociate closely his son Michel with the people, and attach him to thosewho stand in need of assistance, he caused him to be held at the font bypersons of meanest position; subsequently he put him out to nurse with apoor villager, and then, at a later period, made him accustom himself tothe most common sort of living, taking care, nevertheless, to cultivatehis mind, and superintend its development without the exercise of unduerigour or constraint. Michel, who gives us the minutest account of hisearliest years, charmingly narrates how they used to awake him by thesound of some agreeable music, and how he learned Latin, withoutsuffering the rod or shedding a tear, before beginning French, thanks tothe German teacher whom his father had placed near him, and who neveraddressed him except in the language of Virgil and Cicero. The study ofGreek took precedence. At six years of age young Montaigne went to theCollege of Guienne at Bordeaux, where he had as preceptors the mosteminent scholars of the sixteenth century, Nicolas Grouchy, Guerente,Muret, and Buchanan. At thirteen he had passed through all the classes,and as he was destined for the law he left school to study that science.He was then about fourteen, but these early years of his life areinvolved in obscurity. The next information that we have is that in 1554he received the appointment of councillor in the Parliament of Bordeaux;in 1559 he was at Bar-le-Duc with the court of Francis II, and in theyear following he was present at Rouen to witness the declaration of themajority of Charles IX. We do not know in what manner he was engaged onthese occasions.

Between 1556 and 1563 an important incident occurred in the life ofMontaigne, in the commencement of his romantic friendship with Etienne dela Boetie, whom he had met, as he tells us, by pure chance at somefestive celebration in the town. From their very first interview the twofound themselves drawn irresistibly close to one another, and during sixyears this alliance was foremost in the heart of Montaigne, as it wasafterwards in his memory, when death had severed it.

Although he blames severely in his own book [Essays, i. 27.] those who,contrary to the opinion of Aristotle, marry before five-and-thirty,Montaigne did not wait for the period fixed by the philosopher ofStagyra, but in 1566, in his thirty-third year, he espoused Francoise deChassaigne, daughter of a councillor in the Parliament of Bordeaux. Thehistory of his early married life vies in obscurity with that of hisyouth. His biographers are not agreed among themselves; and in thesame degree that he lays open to our view all that concerns his secretthoughts, the innermost mechanism of his mind, he observes too muchreticence in respect to his public functions and conduct, and his socialrelations. The title of Gentleman in Ordinary to the King, which heassumes, in a preface, and which Henry II. gives him in a letter, whichwe print a little farther on; what he says as to the commotions ofcourts, where he passed a portion of his life; the Instructions which hewrote under the dictation of Catherine de Medici for King Charles IX.,and his noble correspondence with Henry IV., leave no doubt, however, asto the part which he played in the transactions of those times, and wefind an unanswerable proof of the esteem in which he was held by the mostexalted personages, in a letter which was addressed to him by Charles atthe time he was admitted to the Order of St. Michael, which was, as heinforms us himself, the highest honour of the French noblesse.

According to Lacroix du Maine, Montaigne, upon the death of his eldestbrother, resigned his post of Councillor, in order to adopt the militaryprofession, while, if we might credit the President Bouhier, he neverdischarged any functions connected with arms. However, several passagesin the Essays seem to indicate that he not only took service, but that hewas actually in numerous campaigns with the Catholic armies. Let us add,that on his monument he is represented in a coat of mail, with his casqueand gauntlets on his right side, and a lion at his feet, all whichsignifies, in the language of funeral emblems, that the departed has beenengaged in some important military transactions.

However it may be as to these conjectures, our author, having arrived athis thirty-eighth year, resolved to dedicate to study and contemplationthe remaining term of his life; and on his birthday, the last of February1571, he caused a philosophical inscription, in Latin, to be placed uponone of the walls of his chateau, where it is still to be seen, and ofwhich the translation is to this effect:--"In the year of Christ . . .in his thirty-eighth year, on the eve of the Calends of March, hisbirthday, Michel Montaigne, already weary of court employments and publichonours, withdrew himself entirely into the converse of the learnedvirgins where he intends to spend the remaining moiety of the to allottedto him in tranquil seclusion."

At the time to which we have come, Montaigne was unknown to the world ofletters, except as a translator and editor. In 1569 he had published atranslation of the "Natural Theology" of Raymond de Sebonde, which he hadsolely undertaken to please his father. In 1571 he had caused to beprinted at Paris certain 'opuscucla' of Etienne de la Boetie; and thesetwo efforts, inspired in one case by filial duty, and in the other byfriendship, prove that affectionate motives overruled with him merepersonal ambition as a literary man. We may suppose that he began tocompose the Essays at the very outset of his retirement from publicengagements; for as, according to his own account, observes the PresidentBouhier, he cared neither for the chase, nor building, nor gardening, noragricultural pursuits, and was exclusively occupied with reading andreflection, he devoted himself with satisfaction to the task of settingdown his thoughts just as they occurred to him. Those thoughts became abook, and the first part of that book, which was to confer immortality onthe writer, appeared at Bordeaux in 1580. Montaigne was then fifty-seven; he had suffered for some years past from renal colic and gravel;and it was with the necessity of distraction from his pain, and the hopeof deriving relief from the waters, that he undertook at this time agreat journey. As the account which he has left of his travels inGermany and Italy comprises some highly interesting particulars of hislife and personal history, it seems worth while to furnish a sketch oranalysis of it.

"The Journey, of which we proceed to describe the course simply," saysthe editor of the Itinerary, "had, from Beaumont-sur-Oise to Plombieres,in Lorraine, nothing sufficiently interesting to detain us . . . wemust go as far, as Basle, of which we have a description, acquainting uswith its physical and political condition at that period, as well as withthe character of its baths. The passage of Montaigne through Switzerlandis not without interest, as we see there how our philosophical travelleraccommodated himself everywhere to the ways of the country. The hotels,the provisions, the Swiss cookery, everything, was agreeable to him; itappears, indeed, as if he preferred to the French manners and tastesthose of the places he was visiting, and of which the simplicity andfreedom (or frankness) accorded more with his own mode of life andthinking. In the towns where he stayed, Montaigne took care to see theProtestant divines, to make himself conversant with all their dogmas. Heeven had disputations with them occasionally.

"Having left Switzerland he went to Isne, an imperial then on to Augsburgand Munich. He afterwards proceeded to the Tyrol, where he was agreeablysurprised, after the warnings which he had received, at the very slightinconveniences which he suffered, which gave him occasion to remark thathe had all his life distrusted the statements of others respectingforeign countries, each person's tastes being according to the notions ofhis native place; and that he had consequently set very little on what hewas told beforehand.

"Upon his arrival at Botzen, Montaigne wrote to Francois Hottmann, to saythat he had been so pleased with his visit to Germany that he quitted itwith great regret, although it was to go into Italy. He then passedthrough Brunsol, Trent, where he put up at the Rose; thence going toRovera; and here he first lamented the scarcity of crawfish, but made upfor the loss by partaking of truffles cooked in oil and vinegar; oranges,citrons, and olives, in all of which he delighted."

After passing a restless night, when he bethought himself in the morningthat there was some new town or district to be seen, he rose, we aretold, with alacrity and pleasure.

His secretary, to whom he dictated his Journal, assures us that he neversaw him take so much interest in surrounding scenes and persons, andbelieves that the complete change helped to mitigate his sufferings inconcentrating his attention on other points. When there was a complaintmade that he had led his party out of the beaten route, and then returnedvery near the spot from which they started, his answer was that he had nosettled course, and that he merely proposed to himself to pay visits toplaces which he had not seen, and so long as they could not convict himof traversing the same path twice, or revisiting a point already seen, hecould perceive no harm in his plan. As to Rome, he cared less to gothere, inasmuch as everybody went there; and he said that he never had alacquey who could not tell him all about Florence or Ferrara. He alsowould say that he seemed to himself like those who are reading somepleasant story or some fine book, of which they fear to come to the end:he felt so much pleasure in travelling that he dreaded the moment ofarrival at the place where they were to stop for the night.

We see that Montaigne travelled, just as he wrote, completely at hisease, and without the least constraint, turning, just as he fancied, fromthe common or ordinary roads taken by tourists. The good inns, the softbeds, the fine views, attracted his notice at every point, and in hisobservations on men and things he confines himself chiefly to thepractical side. The consideration of his health was constantly beforehim, and it was in consequence of this that, while at Venice, whichdisappointed him, he took occasion to note, for the benefit of readers,that he had an attack of colic, and that he evacuated two large stonesafter supper. On quitting Venice, he went in succession to Ferrara,Rovigo, Padua, Bologna (where he had a stomach-ache), Florence, &c.; andeverywhere, before alighting, he made it a rule to send some of hisservants to ascertain where the best accommodation was to be had. Hepronounced the Florentine women the finest in the world, but had not anequally good opinion of the food, which was less plentiful than inGermany, and not so well served. He lets us understand that in Italythey send up dishes without dressing, but in Germany they were muchbetter seasoned, and served with a variety of sauces and gravies. Heremarked further, that the glasses were singularly small and the winesinsipid.

After dining with the Grand-Duke of Florence, Montaigne passed rapidlyover the intermediate country, which had no fascination for him, andarrived at Rome on the last day of November, entering by the Porta delPopolo, and putting up at Bear. But he afterwards hired, at twentycrowns a month, fine furnished rooms in the house of a Spaniard, whoincluded in these terms the use of the kitchen fire. What most annoyedhim in the Eternal City was the number of Frenchmen he met, who allsaluted him in his native tongue; but otherwise he was very comfortable,and his stay extended to five months. A mind like his, full of grandclassical reflections, could not fail to be profoundly impressed in thepresence of the ruins at Rome, and he has enshrined in a magnificentpassage of the Journal the feelings of the moment: "He said," writes hissecretary, "that at Rome one saw nothing but the sky under which she hadbeen built, and the outline of her site: that the knowledge we had of herwas abstract, contemplative, not palpable to the actual senses: thatthose who said they beheld at least the ruins of Rome, went too far, forthe ruins of so gigantic a structure must have commanded greaterreverence-it was nothing but her sepulchre. The world, jealous of her,prolonged empire, had in the first place broken to pieces that admirablebody, and then, when they perceived that the remains attracted worshipand awe, had buried the very wreck itself.--[Compare a passage in oneof Horace Walpole's letters to Richard West, 22 March 1740 (Cunningham'sedit. i. 41), where Walpole, speaking of Rome, describes her very ruinsas ruined.]--As to those small fragments which were still to be seen onthe surface, notwithstanding the assaults of time and all other attacks,again and again repeated, they had been favoured by fortune to be someslight evidence of that infinite grandeur which nothing could entirelyextingish. But it was likely that these disfigured remains were theleast entitled to attention, and that the enemies of that immortalrenown, in their fury, had addressed themselves in the first instance tothe destruction of what was most beautiful and worthiest of preservation;and that the buildings of this bastard Rome, raised upon the ancientproductions, although they might excite the admiration of the presentage, reminded him of the crows' and sparrows' nests built in the wallsand arches of the old churches, destroyed by the Huguenots. Again, hewas apprehensive, seeing the space which this grave occupied, that thewhole might not have been recovered, and that the burial itself had beenburied. And, moreover, to see a wretched heap of rubbish, as pieces oftile and pottery, grow (as it had ages since) to a height equal to thatof Mount Gurson,--[In Perigord.]--and thrice the width of it, appeared toshow a conspiracy of destiny against the glory and pre-eminence of thatcity, affording at the same time a novel and extraordinary proof of itsdeparted greatness. He (Montaigne) observed that it was difficult tobelieve considering the limited area taken up by any of her seven hillsand particularly the two most favoured ones, the Capitoline and thePalatine, that so many buildings stood on the site. Judging only fromwhat is left of the Temple of Concord, along the 'Forum Romanum', ofwhich the fall seems quite recent, like that of some huge mountain splitinto horrible crags, it does not look as if more than two such edificescould have found room on the Capitoline, on which there were at oneperiod from five-and-twenty to thirty temples, besides private dwellings.But, in point of fact, there is scarcely any probability of the viewswhich we take of the city being correct, its plan and form having changedinfinitely; for instance, the 'Velabrum', which on account of itsdepressed level, received the sewage of the city, and had a lake, hasbeen raised by artificial accumulation to a height with the other hills,and Mount Savello has, in truth, grown simply out of the ruins of thetheatre of Marcellus. He believed that an ancient Roman would notrecognise the place again. It often happened that in digging down intoearth the workmen came upon the crown of some lofty column, which, thoughthus buried, was still standing upright. The people there have norecourse to other foundations than the vaults and arches of the oldhouses, upon which, as on slabs of rock, they raise their modern palaces.It is easy to see that several of the ancient streets are thirty feetbelow those at present in use."

Sceptical as Montaigne shows himself in his books, yet during his sojournat Rome he manifested a great regard for religion. He solicited thehonour of being admitted to kiss the feet of the Holy Father, GregoryXIII.; and the Pontiff exhorted him always to continue in the devotionwhich he had hitherto exhibited to the Church and the service of the MostChristian King.

"After this, one sees," says the editor of the Journal, "Montaigneemploying all his time in making excursions bout the neighbourhood onhorseback or on foot, in visits, in observations of every kind. Thechurches, the stations, the processions even, the sermons; then thepalaces, the vineyards, the gardens, the public amusements, as theCarnival, &c.--nothing was overlooked. He saw a Jewish childcircumcised, and wrote down a most minute account of the operation. Hemet at San Sisto a Muscovite ambassador, the second who had come to Romesince the pontificate of Paul III. This minister had despatches from hiscourt for Venice, addressed to the 'Grand Governor of the Signory'. Thecourt of Muscovy had at that time such limited relations with the otherpowers of Europe, and it was so imperfect in its information, that itthought Venice to be a dependency of the Holy See."

Of all the particulars with which he has furnished us during his stay atRome, the following passage in reference to the Essays is not the leastsingular: "The Master of the Sacred Palace returned him his Essays,castigated in accordance with the views of the learned monks. 'He hadonly been able to form a judgment of them,' said he, 'through a certainFrench monk, not understanding French himself'"--we leave Montaignehimself to tell the story--"and he received so complacently my excusesand explanations on each of the passages which had been animadverted uponby the French monk, that he concluded by leaving me at liberty to revisethe text agreeably to the dictates of my own conscience. I begged him,on the contrary, to abide by the opinion of the person who had criticisedme, confessing, among other matters, as, for example, in my use of theword fortune, in quoting historical poets, in my apology for Julian, inmy animadversion on the theory that he who prayed ought to be exempt fromvicious inclinations for the time being; item, in my estimate of cruelty,as something beyond simple death; item, in my view that a child ought tobe brought up to do everything, and so on; that these were my opinions,which I did not think wrong; as to other things, I said that thecorrector understood not my meaning. The Master, who is a clever man,made many excuses for me, and gave me to suppose that he did not concurin the suggested improvements; and pleaded very ingeniously for me in mypresence against another (also an Italian) who opposed my sentiments."

Such is what passed between Montaigne and these two personages at thattime; but when the Essayist was leaving, and went to bid them farewell,they used very different language to him. "They prayed me," says he,"to pay no attention to the censure passed on my book, in which otherFrench persons had apprised them that there were many foolish things;adding, that they honoured my affectionate intention towards the Church,and my capacity; and had so high an opinion of my candour andconscientiousness that they should leave it to me to make suchalterations as were proper in the book, when I reprinted it; among otherthings, the word fortune. To excuse themselves for what they had saidagainst my book, they instanced works of our time by cardinals and otherdivines of excellent repute which had been blamed for similar faults,which in no way affected reputation of the author, or of the publicationas a whole; they requested me to lend the Church the support of myeloquence (this was their fair speech), and to make longer stay in theplace, where I should be free from all further intrusion on their part.It seemed to me that we parted very good friends."

Before quitting Rome, Montaigne received his diploma of citizenship, bywhich he was greatly flattered; and after a visit to Tivoli he set outfor Loretto, stopping at Ancona, Fano, and Urbino. He arrived at thebeginning of May 1581, at Bagno della Villa, where he establishedhimself, order to try the waters. There, we find in the Journal, of hisown accord the Essayist lived in the strictest conformity with theregime, and henceforth we only hear of diet, the effect which the watershad by degrees upon system, of the manner in which he took them; in aword, he does not omit an item of the circumstances connected with hisdaily routine, his habit of body, his baths, and the rest. It was nolonger the journal of a traveller which he kept, but the diary of aninvalid,--["I am reading Montaigne's Travels, which have lately beenfound; there is little in them but the baths and medicines he took, andwhat he had everywhere for dinner."--H. Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June8, 1774.]--attentive to the minutest details of the cure which he wasendeavouring to accomplish: a sort of memorandum book, in which he wasnoting down everything that he felt and did, for the benefit of hismedical man at home, who would have the care of his health on his return,and the attendance on his subsequent infirmities. Montaigne gives it ashis reason and justification for enlarging to this extent here, that hehad omitted, to his regret, to do so in his visits to other baths, whichmight have saved him the trouble of writing at such great length now; butit is perhaps a better reason in our eyes, that what he wrote he wrotefor his own use.

We find in these accounts, however, many touches which are valuable asillustrating the manners of the place. The greater part of the entriesin the Journal, giving the account of these waters, and of the travels,down to Montaigne's arrival at the first French town on his homewardroute, are in Italian, because he wished to exercise himself in thatlanguage.

The minute and constant watchfulness of Montaigne over his health andover himself might lead one to suspect that excessive fear of death whichdegenerates into cowardice. But was it not rather the fear of theoperation for the stone, at that time really formidable? Or perhaps hewas of the same way of thinking with the Greek poet, of whom Ciceroreports this saying: "I do not desire to die; but the thought of beingdead is indifferent to me." Let us hear, however, what he says himselfon this point very frankly: "It would be too weak and unmanly on my partif, certain as I am of always finding myself in the position of having tosuccumb in that way,--[To the stone or gravel.]--and death coming nearerand nearer to me, I did not make some effort, before the time came, tobear the trial with fortitude. For reason prescribes that we shouldjoyfully accept what it may please God to send us. Therefore the onlyremedy, the only rule, and the sole doctrine for avoiding the evils bywhich mankind is surrounded, whatever they are, is to resolve to bearthem so far as our nature permits, or to put an end to them courageouslyand promptly."

He was still at the waters of La Villa, when, on the 7th September 1581,he learned by letter that he had been elected Mayor of Bordeaux on the1st August preceding. This intelligence made him hasten his departure;and from Lucca he proceeded to Rome. He again made some stay in thatcity, and he there received the letter of the jurats of Bordeaux,notifying to him officially his election to the Mayoralty, and invitinghim to return as speedily as possible. He left for France, accompaniedby young D'Estissac and several other gentlemen, who escorted him aconsiderable distance; but none went back to France with him, not evenhis travelling companion. He passed by Padua, Milan, Mont Cenis, andChambery; thence he went on to Lyons, and lost no time in repairing tohis chateau, after an absence of seventeen months and eight days.

We have just seen that, during his absence in Italy, the author of theEssays was elected mayor of Bordeaux. "The gentlemen of Bordeaux," sayshe, "elected me Mayor of their town while I was at a distance fromFrance, and far from the thought of such a thing. I excused myself; butthey gave to understand that I was wrong in so doing, it being also thecommand of the king that I should stand." This the letter which HenryIII. wrote to him on the occasion:

MONSIEUR, DE MONTAIGNE,--Inasmuch as I hold in great esteem your fidelityand zealous devotion to my service, it has been a pleasure to me to learnthat you have been chosen mayor of my town of Bordeaux. I have had theagreeable duty of confirming the selection, and I did so the morewillingly, seeing that it was made during your distant absence; whereforeit is my desire, and I require and command you expressly that you proceedwithout delay to enter on the duties to which you have received solegitimate a call. And so you will act in a manner very agreeable to me,while the contrary will displease me greatly. Praying God, M. deMontaigne, to have you in his holy keeping.

"Written at Paris, the 25th day of November 1581.

"HENRI.

"A Monsieur de MONTAIGNE,Knight of my Order, Gentleman in Ordinary of myChamber, being at present in Rome."

Montaigne, in his new employment, the most important in the province,obeyed the axiom, that a man may not refuse a duty, though it absorb histime and attention, and even involve the sacrifice of his blood. Placedbetween two extreme parties, ever on the point of getting to blows, heshowed himself in practice what he is in his book, the friend of a middleand temperate policy. Tolerant by character and on principle, hebelonged, like all the great minds of the sixteenth century, to thatpolitical sect which sought to improve, without destroying, institutions;and we may say of him, what he himself said of La Boetie, "that he hadthat maxim indelibly impressed on his mind, to obey and submit himselfreligiously to the laws under which he was born. Affectionately attachedto the repose of his country, an enemy to changes and innovations, hewould have preferred to employ what means he had towards theirdiscouragement and suppression, than in promoting their success." Suchwas the platform of his administration.

He applied himself, in an especial manner, to the maintenance of peacebetween the two religious factions which at that time divided the town ofBordeaux; and at the end of his two first years of office, his gratefulfellow-citizens conferred on him (in 1583) the mayoralty for two yearsmore, a distinction which had been enjoyed, as he tells us, only twicebefore. On the expiration of his official career, after four years'duration, he could say fairly enough of himself that he left behind himneither hatred nor cause of offence.

In the midst of the cares of government, Montaigne found time to reviseand enlarge his Essays, which, since their appearance in 1580, werecontinually receiving augmentation in the form of additional chapters orpapers. Two more editions were printed in 1582 and 1587; and during thistime the author, while making alterations in the original text, hadcomposed part of the Third Book. He went to Paris to make arrangementsfor the publication of his enlarged labours, and a fourth impression in1588 was the result. He remained in the capital some time on thisoccasion, and it was now that he met for the first time Mademoiselle deGournay. Gifted with an active and inquiring spirit, and, above all,possessing a sound and healthy tone of mind, Mademoiselle de Gournay hadbeen carried from her childhood with that tide which set in withsixteenth century towards controversy, learning, and knowledge. Shelearnt Latin without a master; and when, the age of eighteen, sheaccidentally became possessor of a copy of the Essays, she wastransported with delight and admiration.

She quitted the chateau of Gournay, to come and see him. We cannot dobetter, in connection with this journey of sympathy, than to repeat thewords of Pasquier: "That young lady, allied to several great and noblefamilies of Paris, proposed to herself no other marriage than with herhonour, enriched with the knowledge gained from good books, and, beyondall others, from the essays of M. de Montaigne, who making in the year1588 a lengthened stay in the town of Paris, she went there for thepurpose of forming his personal acquaintance; and her mother, Madame deGournay, and herself took him back with them to their chateau, where, attwo or three different times, he spent three months altogether, mostwelcome of visitors." It was from this moment that Mademoiselle deGournay dated her adoption as Montaigne's daughter, a circumstance whichhas tended to confer immortality upon her in a far greater measure thanher own literary productions.

Montaigne, on leaving Paris, stayed a short time at Blois, to attend themeeting of the States-General. We do not know what part he took in thatassembly: but it is known that he was commissioned, about this period, tonegotiate between Henry of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV.) and the Duke ofGuise. His political life is almost a blank; but De Thou assures us thatMontaigne enjoyed the confidence of the principal persons of his time.De Thou, who calls him a frank man without constraint, tells us that,walking with him and Pasquier in the court at the Castle of Blois, heheard him pronounce some very remarkable opinions on contemporary events,and he adds that Montaigne had foreseen that the troubles in France couldnot end without witnessing the death of either the King of Navarre or ofthe Duke of Guise. He had made himself so completely master of the viewsof these two princes, that he told De Thou that the King of Navarre wouldhave been prepared to embrace Catholicism, if he had not been afraid ofbeing abandoned by his party, and that the Duke of Guise, on his part,had no particular repugnance to the Confession of Augsburg, for which theCardinal of Lorraine, his uncle, had inspired him with a liking, if ithad not been for the peril involved in quitting the Romish communion. Itwould have been easy for Montaigne to play, as we call it, a great partin politics, and create for himself a lofty position but his motto was,'Otio et Libertati'; and he returned quietly home to compose a chapterfor his next edition on inconveniences of Greatness.

The author of the Essays was now fifty-five. The malady which tormentedhim grew only worse and worse with years; and yet he occupied himselfcontinually with reading, meditating, and composition. He employed theyears 1589, 1590, and 1591 in making fresh additions to his book; andeven in the approaches of old age he might fairly anticipate many happyhours, when he was attacked by quinsy, depriving him of the powerutterance. Pasquier, who has left us some details his last hours,narrates that he remained three days in full possession of his faculties,but unable to speak, so that, in order to make known his desires, he wasobliged to resort to writing; and as he felt his end drawing near, hebegged his wife to summon certain of the gentlemen who lived in theneighbourhood to bid them a last farewell. When they had arrived, hecaused mass to be celebrated in apartment; and just as the priest waselevating the host, Montaigne fell forward with his arms extended infront of him, on the bed, and so expired. He was in his sixtieth year.It was the 13th September 1592.

Montaigne was buried near his own house; but a few years after hisdecease, his remains were removed to the church of a Commandery of St.Antoine at Bordeaux, where they still continue. His monument wasrestored in 1803 by a descendant. It was seen about 1858 by an Englishtraveller (Mr. St. John).'--["Montaigne the Essayist," by Bayle St.John, 1858, 2 vols. 8vo, is one of most delightful books of the kind.]--and was then in good preservation.

In 1595 Mademoiselle de Gournay published a new edition of Montaigne'sEssays, and the first with the latest emendations of the author, from acopy presented to her by his widow, and which has not been recovered,although it is known to have been in existence some years after the dateof the impression, made on its authority.

Coldly as Montaigne's literary productions appear to have been receivedby the generation immediately succeeding his own age, his genius grewinto just appreciation in the seventeenth century, when such greatspirits arose as La Bruyere, Moliere, La Fontaine, Madame de Sevigne."O," exclaimed the Chatelaine des Rochers, "what capital company he is,the dear man! he is my old friend; and just for the reason that he isso, he always seems new. My God! how full is that book of sense!"Balzac said that he had carried human reason as far and as high as itcould go, both in politics and in morals. On the other hand, Malebrancheand the writers of Port Royal were against him; some reprehended thelicentiousness of his writings; others their impiety, materialism,epicureanism. Even Pascal, who had carefully read the Essays, and gainedno small profit by them, did not spare his reproaches. But Montaigne hasoutlived detraction. As time has gone on, his admirers and borrowershave increased in number, and his Jansenism, which recommended him to theeighteenth century, may not be his least recommendation in thenineteenth. Here we have certainly, on the whole, a first-class man, andone proof of his masterly genius seems to be, that his merits and hisbeauties are sufficient to induce us to leave out of considerationblemishes and faults which would have been fatal to an inferior writer.

THE LETTERS OF MONTAIGNE.

I.

To Monsieur de MONTAIGNE

[This account of the death of La Boetie begins imperfectly. It firstappeared in a little volume of Miscellanies in 1571. See Hazlitt, ubisup. p. 630.]--....As to his last words, doubtless, if any man cangive good account of them, it is I, both because, during the whole of hissickness he conversed as fully with me as with any one, and also because,in consequence of the singular and brotherly friendship which we hadentertained for each other, I was perfectly acquainted with theintentions, opinions, and wishes which he had formed in the course of hislife, as much so, certainly, as one man can possibly be with those ofanother man; and because I knew them to be elevated, virtuous, full ofsteady resolution, and (after all said) admirable. I well foresaw that,if his illness permitted him to express himself, he would allow nothingto fall from him, in such an extremity, that was not replete with goodexample. I consequently took every care in my power to treasure what wassaid. True it is, Monseigneur, as my memory is not only in itself veryshort, but in this case affected by the trouble which I have undergone,through so heavy and important a loss, that I have forgotten a number ofthings which I should wish to have had known; but those which I recollectshall be related to you as exactly as lies in my power. For to representin full measure his noble career suddenly arrested, to paint to you hisindomitable courage, in a body worn out and prostrated by pain and theassaults of death, I confess, would demand a far better ability thanmine: because, although, when in former years he discoursed on seriousand important matters, he handled them in such a manner that it wasdifficult to reproduce exactly what he said, yet his ideas and his wordsat the last seemed to rival each other in serving him. For I am surethat I never knew him give birth to such fine conceptions, or display somuch eloquence, as in the time of his sickness. If, Monseigneur, youblame me for introducing his more ordinary observations, please to knowthat I do so advisedly; for since they proceeded from him at a season ofsuch great trouble, they indicate the perfect tranquillity of his mindand thoughts to the last.

On Monday, the 9th day of August 1563, on my return from the Court, Isent an invitation to him to come and dine with me. He returned wordthat he was obliged, but, being indisposed, he would thank me to do himthe pleasure of spending an hour with him before he started for Medoc.Shortly after my dinner I went to him. He had laid himself down on thebed with his clothes on, and he was already, I perceived, much changed.He complained of diarrhoea, accompanied by the gripes, and said that hehad it about him ever since he played with M. d'Escars with nothing buthis doublet on, and that with him a cold often brought on such attacks.I advised him to go as he had proposed, but to stay for the night atGermignac, which is only about two leagues from the town. I gave himthis advice, because some houses, near to that where he was ping, werevisited by the plague, about which he was nervous since his return fromPerigord and the Agenois, here it had been raging; and, besides, horseexercise was, from my own experience, beneficial under similarcircumstances. He set out, accordingly, with his wife and M.Bouillhonnas, his uncle.

Early on the following morning, however, I had intelligence from Madamede la Boetie, that in the night he had fresh and violent attack ofdysentery. She had called in physician and apothecary, and prayed me tolose no time coming, which (after dinner) I did. He was delighted to seeme; and when I was going away, under promise to turn the following day,he begged me more importunately and affectionately than he was wont todo, to give him as such of my company as possible. I was a littleaffected; yet was about to leave, when Madame de la Boetie, as if sheforesaw something about to happen, implored me with tears to stay thenight. When I consented, he seemed to grow more cheerful. I returnedhome the next day, and on the Thursday I paid him another visit. He hadbecome worse; and his loss of blood from the dysentery, which reduced hisstrength very much, was largely on the increase. I quitted his side onFriday, but on Saturday I went to him, and found him very weak. He thengave me to understand that his complaint was infectious, and, moreover,disagreeable and depressing; and that he, knowing thoroughly myconstitution, desired that I should content myself with coming to see himnow and then. On the contrary, after that I never left his side.

It was only on the Sunday that he began to converse with me on anysubject beyond the immediate one of his illness, and what the ancientdoctors thought of it: we had not touched on public affairs, for I foundat the very outset that he had a dislike to them.

But, on the Sunday, he had a fainting fit; and when he came to himself,he told me that everything seemed to him confused, as if in a mist and indisorder, and that, nevertheless, this visitation was not unpleasing tohim. "Death," I replied, "has no worse sensation, my brother." "None sobad," was his answer. He had had no regular sleep since the beginning ofhis illness; and as he became worse and worse, he began to turn hisattention to questions which men commonly occupy themselves with in thelast extremity, despairing now of getting better, and intimating as muchto me. On that day, as he appeared in tolerably good spirits, I tookoccasion to say to him that, in consideration of the singular love I borehim, it would become me to take care that his affairs, which he hadconducted with such rare prudence in his life, should not be neglected atpresent; and that I should regret it if, from want of proper counsel, heshould leave anything unsettled, not only on account of the loss to hisfamily, but also to his good name.

He thanked me for my kindness; and after a little reflection, as if hewas resolving certain doubts in his own mind, he desired me to summon hisuncle and his wife by themselves, in order that he might acquaint themwith his testamentary dispositions. I told him that this would shockthem. "No, no," he answered, "I will cheer them by making out my case tobe better than it is." And then he inquired, whether we were not allmuch taken by surprise at his having fainted? I replied, that it was ofno importance, being incidental to the complaint from which he suffered."True, my brother," said he; "it would be unimportant, even though itshould lead to what you most dread." "For you," I rejoined, "it might bea happy thing; but I should be the loser, who would thereby be deprivedof so great, so wise, and so steadfast a friend, a friend whose place Ishould never see supplied." "It is very likely you may not," was hisanswer; "and be sure that one thing which makes me somewhat anxious torecover, and to delay my journey to that place, whither I am alreadyhalf-way gone, is the thought of the loss both you and that poor man andwoman there (referring to his uncle and wife) must sustain; for I lovethem with my whole heart, and I feel certain that they will find it veryhard to lose me. I should also regret it on account of such as have, inmy lifetime, valued me, and whose conversation I should like to haveenjoyed a little longer; and I beseech you, my brother, if I leave theworld, to carry to them for me an assurance of the esteem I entertainedfor them to the last moment of my existence. My birth was, moreover,scarcely to so little purpose but that, had I lived, I might have donesome service to the public; but, however this may be, I am prepared tosubmit to the will of God, when it shall please Him to call me, beingconfident of enjoying the tranquillity which you have foretold for me.As for you, my friend, I feel sure that you are so wise, that you willcontrol your emotions, and submit to His divine ordinance regarding me;and I beg of you to see that that good man and woman do not mourn for mydeparture unnecessarily."

He proceeded to inquire how they behaved at present. "Very well," saidI, "considering the circumstances." "Ah!" he replied, "that is, so longas they do not abandon all hope of me; but when that shall be the case,you will have a hard task to support them." It was owing to his strongregard for his wife and uncle that he studiously disguised from them hisown conviction as to the certainty of his end, and he prayed me to do thesame. When they were near him he assumed an appearance of gaiety, andflattered them with hopes. I then went to call them. They came, wearingas composed an air as possible; and when we four were together, headdressed us, with an untroubled countenance, as follows: "Uncle andwife, rest assured that no new attack of my disease, or fresh doubt thatI have as to my recovery, has led me to take this step of communicatingto you my intentions, for, thank God, I feel very well and hopeful; buttaught by observation and experience the instability of all human things,and even of the life to which we are so much attached, and which is,nevertheless, a mere bubble; and knowing, moreover, that my state ofhealth brings me more within the danger of death, I have thought properto settle my worldly affairs, having the benefit of your advice." Thenaddressing himself more particularly to his uncle, "Good uncle," said he,"if I were to rehearse all the obligations under which I lie to you, I amsure that I never should make an end. Let me only say that, wherever Ihave been, and with whomsoever I have conversed, I have represented youas doing for me all that a father could do for a son; both in the carewith which you tended my education, and in the zeal with which you pushedme forward into public life, so that my whole existence is a testimony ofyour good offices towards me. In short, I am indebted for all that Ihave to you, who have been to me as a parent; and therefore I have noright to part with anything, unless it be with your approval."

There was a general silence hereupon, and his uncle was prevented fromreplying by tears and sobs. At last he said that whatever he thought forthe best would be agreeable to him; and as he intended to make him hisheir, he was at liberty to dispose of what would be his.

Then he turned to his wife. "My image," said he (for so he often calledher, there being some sort of relationship between them), "since I havebeen united to you by marriage, which is one of the most weighty andsacred ties imposed on us by God, for the purpose of maintaining humansociety, I have continued to love, cherish, and value you; and I knowthat you have returned my affection, for which I have no sufficientacknowledgment. I beg you to accept such portion of my estate as Ibequeath to you, and be satisfied with it, though it is very inadequateto your desert."

Afterwards he turned to me. "My brother," he began, "for whom I have soentire a love, and whom I selected out of so large a number, thinking torevive with you that virtuous and sincere friendship which, owing to thedegeneracy of the age, has grown to be almost unknown to us, and nowexists only in certain vestiges of antiquity, I beg of you, as a mark ofmy affection to you, to accept my library: a slender offering, but givenwith a cordial will, and suitable to you, seeing that you are fond oflearning. It will be a memorial of your old companion."

Then he addressed all three of us. He blessed God that in his extremityhe had the happiness to be surrounded by those whom he held dearest inthe world, and he looked upon it as a fine spectacle, where four personswere together, so unanimous in their feelings, and loving each other foreach other's sake. He commended us one to the other; and proceeded thus:"My worldly matters being arranged, I must now think of the welfare of mysoul. I am a Christian; I am a Catholic. I have lived one, and I shalldie one. Send for a priest; for I wish to conform to this last Christianobligation." He now concluded his discourse, which he had conducted withsuch a firm face and with so distinct an utterance, that whereas, when Ifirst entered his room, he was feeble, inarticulate in his speech, hispulse low and feverish, and his features pallid, now, by a sort ofmiracle, he appeared to have rallied, and his pulse was so strong thatfor the sake of comparison, I asked him to feel mine.

I felt my heart so oppressed at this moment, that I had not the power tomake him any answer; but in the course of two or three hours, solicitousto keep up his courage, and, likewise, out of the tenderness which I hadhad all my life for his honour and fame, wishing a larger number ofwitnesses to his admirable fortitude, I said to him, how much I wasashamed to think that I lacked courage to listen to what he, so great asufferer, had the courage to deliver; that down to the present time I hadscarcely conceived that God granted us such command over humaninfirmities, and had found a difficulty in crediting the examples I hadread in histories; but that with such evidence of the thing before myeyes, I gave praise to God that it had shown itself in one so excessivelydear to me, and who loved me so entirely, and that his example would helpme to act in a similar manner when my turn came. Interrupting me, hebegged that it might happen so, and that the conversation which hadpassed between us might not be mere words, but might be impressed deeplyon our minds, to be put in exercise at the first occasion; and that thiswas the real object and aim of all philosophy.

He then took my hand, and continued: "Brother, friend, there are manyacts of my life, I think, which have cost me as much difficulty as thisone is likely to do; and, after all, I have been long prepared for it,and have my lesson by heart. Have I not lived long enough? I am justupon thirty-three. By the grace of God, my days so far have knownnothing but health and happiness; but in the ordinary course of ourunstable human affairs, this could not have lasted much longer; it wouldhave become time for me to enter on graver avocations, and I should thushave involved myself in numberless vexations, and, among them, thetroubles of old age, from which I shall now be exempt. Moreover, it isprobable that hitherto my life has been spent more simply, and with lessof evil, thanif God had spared me, and I had survived to feel the thirst for richesand worldly prosperity. I am sure, for my part, that I now go to God andthe place of the blessed." He seemed to detect in my expression someinquietude at his words; and he exclaimed, "What, my brother, would youmake me entertain apprehensions? Had I any, whom would it become so muchas yourself to remove them?"

The notary, who had been summoned to draw up his will, came in theevening, and when he had the documents prepared, I inquired of La Boetieif he would sign them. "Sign them," cried he; "I will do so with my ownhand; but I could desire more time, for I feel exceedingly timid andweak, and in a manner exhausted." But when I was going to change theconversation, he suddenly rallied, said he had but a short time to live,and asked if the notary wrote rapidly, for he should dictate withoutmaking any pause. The notary was called, and he dictated his will thereand then with such speed that the man could scarcely keep up with him;and when he had done, he asked me to read it out, saying to me, "What agood thing it is to look after what are called our riches." 'Sunt haec,quoe hominibus vocantur bona'. As soon as the will was signed, thechamber being full, he asked me if it would hurt him to talk. Ianswered, that it would not, if he did not speak too loud. He thensummoned Mademoiselle de Saint Quentin, his niece, to him, and addressedher thus: "Dear niece, since my earliest acquaintance with thee, I haveobserved the marks of, great natural goodness in thee; but the serviceswhich thou rendered to me, with so much affectionate diligence, in mypresent and last necessity, inspire me with high hopes of thee; and I amunder great obligations to thee, and give thee most affectionate thanks.Let me relieve my conscience by counselling thee to be, in the firstplace, devout, to God: for this doubtless is our first duty, failingwhich all others can be of little advantage or grace, but which, dulyobserved, carries with it necessarily all other virtues. After God, thoushouldest love thy father and mother--thy mother, my sister, whom Iregard as one of the best and most intelligent of women, and by whom Ibeg of thee to let thy own life be regulated. Allow not thyself to beled away by pleasures; shun, like the plague, the foolish familiaritiesthou seest between some men and women; harmless enough at first, butwhich by insidious degrees corrupt the heart, and thence lead it tonegligence, and then into the vile slough of vice. Credit me, thegreatest safeguard to female chastity is sobriety of demeanour. Ibeseech and direct that thou often call to mind the friendship which wasbetwixt us; but I do not wish thee to mourn for me too much--aninjunction which, so far as it is in my power, I lay on all my friends,since it might seem that by doing so they felt a jealousy of that blessedcondition in which I am about to be placed by death. I assure thee, mydear, that if I had the option now of continuing in life or of completingthe voyage on which I have set out, I should find it very hard to choose.Adieu, dear niece."

Mademoiselle d'Arsat, his stepdaughter, was next called. He said to her:"Daughter, you stand in no great need of advice from me, insomuch as youhave a mother, whom I have ever found most sagacious, and entirely inconformity with my own opinions and wishes, and whom I have never foundfaulty; with such a preceptress, you cannot fail to be properlyinstructed. Do not account it singular that I, with no tie of blood toyou, am interested in you; for, being the child of one who is so closelyallied to me, I am necessarily concerned in what concerns you; andconsequently the affairs of your brother, M. d'Arsat, have ever beenwatched by me with as much care as my own; nor perhaps will it be to yourdisadvantage that you were my step-daughter. You enjoy sufficient storeof wealth and beauty; you are a lady of good family; it only remains foryou to add to these possessions the cultivation of your mind, in which Iexhort you not to fail. I do not think necessary to warn you againstvice, a thing so odious in women, for I would not even suppose that youcould harbour any inclination for it--nay, I believe that you hold thevery name in abhorrence. Dear daughter, farewell."

All in the room were weeping and lamenting; but he held withoutinterruption the thread of his discourse, which was pretty long. Butwhen he had done, he directed us all to leave the room, except the womenattendants, whom he styled his garrison. But first, calling to him mybrother, M. de Beauregard, he said to him: "M. de Beauregard, you havemy best thanks for all the care you have taken of me. I have now a thingwhich I am very anxious indeed to mention to you, and with yourpermission I will do so." As my brother gave him encouragement toproceed, he added: "I assure you that I never knew any man who engaged inthe reformation of our Church with greater sincerity, earnestness, andsingle-heartedness than yourself. I consider that you were led to it byobserving the vicious character of our prelates, which no doubt muchrequires setting in order, and by imperfections which time has broughtinto our Church. It is not my desire at present discourage you fromthis course, for I would have no one act in opposition to his conscience;but I wish, having regard to the good repute acquired by your family fromits enduring concord--a family than which none can be dearer to me; afamily, thank God! no member of which has ever been guilty of dishonour--in regard, further, to the will of your good father to whom you owe somuch, and of your, uncle, I wish you to avoid extreme means; avoidharshness and violence: be reconciled with your relatives; do not actapart, but unite. You perceive what disasters our quarrels have broughtupon this kingdom, and I anticipate still worse mischiefs; and in yourgoodness and wisdom, beware of involving your family in such broils; letit continue to enjoy its former reputation and happiness. M. deBeauregard, take what I say in good part, and as a proof of thefriendship I feel for you. I postponed till now any communication withyou on the subject, and perhaps the condition in which you see me addressyou, may cause my advice and opinion to carry greater authority." Mybrother expressed his thanks to him cordially.

On the Monday morning he had become so ill that he quite despaired ofhimself; and he said to me very pitifully: "Brother, do not you feel painfor all the pain I am suffering? Do you not perceive now that the helpyou give me has no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering?"

Shortly afterwards he fainted, and we all thought him gone; but by theapplication of vinegar and wine he rallied. But he soon sank, and whenhe heard us in lamentation, he murmured, "O God! who is it that teasesme so? Why did you break the agreeable repose I was enjoying? I beg ofyou to leave me." And then, when he caught the sound of my voice, hecontinued: "And art thou, my brother, likewise unwilling to see me atpeace? O, how thou robbest me of my repose!" After a while, he seemedto gain more strength, and called for wine, which he relished, anddeclared it to be the finest drink possible. I, in order to change thecurrent of his thoughts, put in, "Surely not; water is the best." "Ah,yes," he returned, "doubtless so;--(Greek phrase)--." He had now become,icy-cold at his extremities, even to his face; a deathly perspiration wasupon him, and his pulse was scarcely perceptible.

This morning he confessed, but the priest had omitted to bring with himthe necessary apparatus for celebrating Mass. On the Tuesday, however,M. de la Boetie summoned him to aid him, as he said, in discharging thelast office of a Christian. After the conclusion of Mass, he took thesacrament; when the priest was about to depart, he said to him:"Spiritual father, I implore you humbly, as well as those over whom youare set, to pray to the Almighty on my behalf; that, if it be decreed inheaven that I am now to end my life, He will take compassion on my soul,and pardon me my sins, which are manifold, it not being possible for soweak and poor a creature as I to obey completely the will of such aMaster; or, if He think fit to keep me longer here, that it may pleaseHim to release my present extreme anguish, and to direct my footsteps inthe right path, that I may become a better man than I have been." Hepaused to recover breath a little; priest was about to go away, he calledhim back and proceeded: "I desire to say, besides, in your hearing this:I declare that I was christened and I have lived, and that so I wish todie, in the faith which Moses preached in Egypt; which afterwards thePatriarchs accepted and professed in Judaea; and which, in the course oftime, has been transmitted to France and to us." He seemed desirous ofadding something more, but he ended with a request to his uncle and me tosend up prayers for him; "for those are," he said, "the best duties thatChristians can fulfil one for another." In the course of talking, hisshoulder was uncovered, and although a man-servant stood near him, heasked his uncle to re-adjust the clothes. Then, turning his eyes towardsme, he said, "Ingenui est, cui multum debeas, ei plurimum velle debere."

M. de Belot called in the afternoon to see him, and M. de la Boetie,taking his hand, said to him: "I was on the point of discharging my debt,but my kind creditor has given me a little further time." A little whileafter, appearing to wake out of a sort of reverie, he uttered words whichhe had employed once or twice before in the course of his sickness:"Ah well, ah well, whenever the hour comes, I await it with pleasure andfortitude." And then, as they were holding his mouth open by force togive him a draught, he observed to M. de Belot: "An vivere tanti est?"

As the evening approached, he began perceptibly to sink; and while Isupped, he sent for me to come, being no more than the shadow of a man,or, as he put it himself, 'non homo, sed species hominis'; and he said tome with the utmost difficulty: "My brother, my friend, please God I mayrealise the imaginations I have just enjoyed." Afterwards, having waitedfor some time while he remained silent, and by painful efforts wasdrawing long sighs (for his tongue at this point began to refuse itsfunctions), I said, "What are they?" "Grand, grand!" he replied. "Ihave never yet failed," returned I, "to have the honour of hearing yourconceptions and imaginations communicated to me; will you not now stilllet me enjoy them?" "I would indeed," he answered; "but, my brother,I am not able to do so; they are admirable, infinite, and unspeakable."We stopped short there, for he could not go on. A little before, indeed,he had shown a desire to speak to his wife, and had told her, with as gaya countenance as he could contrive to assume, that he had a story to tellher. And it seemed as if he was making an attempt to gain utterance;but, his strength failing him, he begged a little wine to resuscitate it.It was of no avail, for he fainted away suddenly, and was for some timeinsensible. Having become so near a neighbour to death, and hearing thesobs of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called her, and said to her thus:"My own likeness, you grieve yourself beforehand; will you not have pityon me? take courage. Assuredly, it costs me more than half the pain Iendure, to see you suffer; and reasonably so, because the evils which weourselves feel we do not actually ourselves suffer, but it certainsentient faculties which God plants in us, that feel them: whereas whatwe feel on account of others, we feel by consequence of a certainreasoning process which goes on within our minds. But I am going away"--That he said because his strength was failing him; and fearing that hehad frightened his wife, he resumed, observing: "I am going to sleep.Good night, my wife; go thy way." This was the last farewell he took ofher.

After she had left, "My brother," said he to me, "keep near me, if youplease;" and then feeling the advance of death more pressing and moreacute, or else the effect of some warm draught which they had made himswallow, his voice grew stronger and clearer, and he turned quite withviolence in his bed, so that all began again to entertain the hope whichwe had lost only upon witnessing his extreme prostration.

At this stage he proceeded, among other things, to pray me again andagain, in a most affectionate manner, to give him a place; so that I wasapprehensive that his reason might be impaired, particularly when, on mypointing out to him that he was doing himself harm, and that these werenot of the words of a rational man, he did not yield at first, butredoubled his outcry, saying, "My brother, my brother! dost thou thenrefuse me a place?" insomuch that he constrained me to demonstrate tohim that, as he breathed and spoke, and had his physical being, thereforehe had his place. "Yes, yes," he responded, "I have; but it is not thatwhich I need; and, besides, when all is said, I have no longer anyexistence." "God," I replied, "will grant you a better one soon.""Would it were now, my brother," was his answer. "It is now three dayssince I have been eager to take my departure."

Being in this extremity, he frequently called me, merely to satisfy himthat I was at his side. At length, he composed himself a little to rest,which strengthened our hopes; so much so, indeed, that I left the room,and went to rejoice thereupon with Mademoiselle de la Boetie. But, anhour or so afterwards, he called me by name once or twice, and then witha long sigh expired at three o'clock on Wednesday morning, the 18thAugust 1563, having lived thirty-two years, nine months, and seventeendays.

II.

To Monseigneur, Monseigneur de MONTAIGNE.

[This letter is prefixed to Montaigne's translation of the "NaturalTheology" of Raymond de Sebonde, printed at Paris in 1569.]

In pursuance of the instructions which you gave me last year in yourhouse at Montaigne, Monseigneur, I have put into a French dress, with myown hand, Raymond de Sebonde, that great Spanish theologian andphilosopher; and I have divested him, so far as I could, of that roughbearing and barbaric appearance which you saw him wear at first; that, inmy opinion, he is now qualified to present himself in the best company.It is perfectly possible that some fastidious persons will detect in thebook some trace of Gascon parentage; but it will be so much the more totheir discredit, that they allowed the task to devolve on one who isquite a novice in these things. It is only right, Monseigneur, that thework should come before the world under your auspices, since whateveremendations and polish it may have received, are owing to you. Still Isee well that, if you think proper to balance accounts with the author,you will find yourself much his debtor; for against his excellent andreligious discourses, his lofty and, so to speak, divine conceptions, youwill find that you will have to set nothing but words and phraseology; asort of merchandise so ordinary and commonplace, that whoever has themost of it, peradventure is the worst off.

Monseigneur, I pray God to grant you a very long and happy life. FromParis, this 18th of June 1568. Your most humble and most obedient son,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

III.

To Monsieur, Monsieur de LANSAC,--[This letter appears to belong to1570.]--Knight of the King's Order, Privy Councillor, Sub-controller ofhis Finance, and Captain of the Cent Gardes of his Household.

MONSIEUR,--I send you the OEconomics of Xenophon, put into French by thelate M. de la Boetie,--[Printed at Paris, 8vo, 1571, and reissued, withthe addition of some notes, in 1572, with a fresh title-page.]--a presentwhich appears to me to be appropriate, as well because it is the work ofa gentleman of mark,--[Meaning Xenophon.]--a man illustrious in war andpeace, as because it has taken its second shape from a personage whom Iknow to have been held by you in affectionate regard during his life.This will be an inducement to you to continue to cherish towards hismemory, your good opinion and goodwill. And to be bold with you,Monsieur, do not fear to increase these sentiments somewhat; for, as youhad knowledge of his high qualities only in his public capacity, it restswith me to assure you how many endowments he possessed beyond yourpersonal experience of him. He did me the honour, while he lived, and Icount it amongst the most fortunate circumstances in my own career, tohave with me a friendship so close and so intricately knit, that nomovement, impulse, thought, of his mind was kept from me, and if I havenot formed a right judgment of him, I must suppose it to be from my ownwant of scope. Indeed, without exaggeration, he was so nearly a prodigy,that I am afraid of not being credited when I speak of him, even though Ishould keep much within the mark of my own actual knowledge. And forthis time, Monsieur, I shall content myself with praying you, for thehonour and respect we owe to truth, to testify and believe that ourGuienne never beheld his peer among the men of his vocation. Under thehope, therefore, that you will pay him his just due, and in order torefresh him in your memory, I present you this book, which will answerfor me that, were it not for the insufficiency of my power, I would offeryou as willingly something of my own, as an acknowledgment of theobligations I owe to you, and of the ancient favour and friendship whichyou have borne towards the members of our house. But, Monsieur, indefault of better coin, I offer you in payment the assurance of my desireto do you humble service.

Monsieur, I pray God to have you in His keeping. Your obedient servant,MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

IV.

To Monsieur, Monsieur de MESMES, Lord of Roissy and Malassize, PrivyCouncillor to the King.

MONSIEUR,--It is one of the most conspicuous follies committed by men,to employ the strength of their understanding in overturning anddestroying those opinions which are commonly received among us, and whichafford us satisfaction and content; for while everything beneath heavenemploys the ways and means placed at its disposal by nature for theadvancement and commodity of its being, these, in order to appear of amore sprightly and enlightened wit, not accepting anything which has notbeen tried and balanced a thousand times with the most subtle reasoning,sacrifice their peace of mind to doubt, uneasiness, and feverishexcitement. It is not without reason that childhood and simplicity havebeen recommended by holy writ itself. For my part, I prefer to be quietrather than clever: give me content, even if I am not to be so wide in myrange. This is the reason, Monsieur, why, although persons of aningenious turn laugh at our care as to what will happen after our owntime, for instance, to our souls, which, lodged elsewhere, will lose allconsciousness of what goes on here below, yet I consider it to be a greatconsolation for the frailty and brevity of life, to reflect that we havethe power of prolonging it by reputation and fame; and I embrace veryreadily this pleasant and favourable notion original with our being,without inquiring too critically how or why it is. Insomuch that havingloved, beyond everything, the late M. de la Boetie, the greatest man, inmy judgment, of our age, I should think myself very negligent of my dutyif I failed, to the utmost of my power, to prevent such a name as his,and a memory so richly meriting remembrance, from falling into oblivion;and if I did not use my best endeavour to keep them fresh. I believethat he feels something of what I do on his behalf, and that my servicestouch and rejoice him. In fact, he lives in my heart so vividly and sowholly, that I am loath to believe him committed to the dull ground, oraltogether cast off from communication with us. Therefore, Monsieur,since every new light I can shed on him and his name, is so much added tohis second period of existence, and, moreover, since his name is ennobledand honoured by the place which receives it, it falls to me not only toextend it as widely as I can, but to confide it to the keeping of personsof honour and virtue; among whom you hold such a rank, that, to affordyou the opportunity of receiving this new guest, and giving him goodentertainment, I decided on presenting to you this little work, not forany profit you are likely to derive from it, being well aware that you donot need to have Plutarch and his companions interpreted to you--but itis possible that Madame de Roissy, reading in it the order of herhousehold management and of your happy accord painted to the life, willbe pleased to see how her own natural inclination has not only reachedbut surpassed the theories of the wisest philosophers, regarding theduties and laws of the wedded state. And, at all events, it will bealways an honour to me, to be able to do anything which shall be for thepleasure of you and yours, on account of the obligation under which I lieto serve you.

Monsieur, I pray God to grant you a long and happy life. From Montaigne,this 30th April 1570. Your humble servant,MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

V.

To Monsieur, Monsieur de L'HOSPITAL, Chancellor of France

MONSEIGNEUR,--I am of the opinion that persons such as you, to whomfortune and reason have committed the charge of public affairs, are notmore inquisitive in any point than in ascertaining the character of thosein office under you; for no society is so poorly furnished, but that, ifa proper distribution of authority be used, it has persons sufficient forthe discharge of all official duties; and when this is the case, nothingis wanting to make a State perfect in its constitution. Now, inproportion as this is so much to be desired, so it is the more difficultof accomplishment, since you cannot have eyes to embrace a multitude solarge and so widely extended, nor to see to the bottom of hearts, inorder that you may discover intentions and consciences, mattersprincipally to be considered; so that there has never been anycommonwealth so well organised, in which we might not detect often enoughdefect in such a department or such a choice; and in those systems, whereignorance and malice, favouritism, intrigue, and violence govern, if anyselection happens to be made on the ground of merit and regularity, wemay doubtless thank Fortune, which, in its capricious movements, has foronce taken the path of reason.

This consideration, Monseigneur, often consoled me, when I beheld M.Etienne de la Boetie, one of the fittest men for high office in France,pass his whole life without employment and notice, by his domestichearth, to the singular detriment of the public; for, so far as he wasconcerned, I may assure you, Monseigneur, that he was so rich in thosetreasures which defy fortune, that never was man more satisfied orcontent. I know, indeed, that he was raised to the dignities connectedwith his neighbourhood--dignities accounted considerable; and I knowalso, that no one ever acquitted himself better of them; and when he diedat the age of thirty-two, he enjoyed a reputation in that way beyond allwho had preceded him.

But for all that, it is no reason that a man should be left a commonsoldier, who deserves to become a captain; nor to assign mean functionsto those who are perfectly equal to the highest. In truth, his powerswere badly economised and too sparingly employed; insomuch that, over andabove his actual work, there was abundant capacity lying idle which mighthave been called into service, both to the public advantage and his ownprivate glory.

Therefore, Monseigneur, since he was so indifferent to his own fame (forvirtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together), and since helived in an age when others were too dull or too jealous to witness tohis character, I have it marvellously at heart that his memory, at allevents, to which I owe the good offices of a friend, should enjoy therecompense of his brave life; and that it should survive in the goodreport of men of honour and virtue. On this account, sir, I have beendesirous to bring to light, and present to you, such few Latin verses ashe left behind. Different from the builder, who places the mostattractive, portion of his house towards the street, and to the draper,who displays in his window his best goods, that which was most preciousin my friend, the juice and marrow of his genius, departed with him, andthere have remained to us but the bark and the leaves.

The exactly regulated movements of his mind, his piety, his virtue, hisjustice, his vivacity, the solidity and soundness of his judgment, theloftiness of his ideas, raised so far above the common level, hislearning, the grace which accompanied his most ordinary actions, thetender affection he had for his miserable country, and his supreme andsworn detestation of all vice, but principally of that villainous trafficwhich disguises itself under the honourable name of justice, shouldcertainly impress all well-disposed persons with a singular love towardshim, and an extraordinary regret for his loss. But, sir, I am unable todo justice to all these qualities; and of the fruit of his own studies ithad not entered into his mind to leave any proof to posterity; all thatremains, is the little which, as a pastime, he did at intervals.

However this may be, I beg you, sir, to receive it kindly; and as ourjudgment of great things is many times formed from lesser things, and aseven the recreations of illustrious men carry with them, to intelligentobservers, some honourable traits of their origin, I would have you formfrom this, some knowledge of him, and hence lovingly cherish his name andhis memory. In this, sir, you will only reciprocate the high opinionwhich he had of your virtue, and realise what he infinitely desired inhis lifetime; for there was no one in the world in whose acquaintance andfriendship he would have been so happy to see himself established, as inyour own. But if any man is offended by the freedom which I use with thebelongings of another, I can tell him that nothing which has been writtenor been laid down, even in the schools of philosophy, respecting thesacred duties and rights of friendship, could give an adequate idea ofthe relations which subsisted between this personage and myself.

Moreover, sir, this slender gift, to make two throws of one stone at thesame time, may likewise serve, if you please, to testify the honour andrespect which I entertain for your ability and high qualities; for as tothose gifts which are adventitious and accidental, it is not to my tasteto take them into account.

Sir, I pray God to grant you a very happy and a very long life. FromMontaigne, this 30th of April 1570.--Your humble and obedient servant,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

To Monsieur, Monsieur de Folx, Privy Councillor, and Ambassador of HisMajesty to the Signory of Venice.--[ Printed before the 'Vers Francois'of Etienne de la Boetie, 8vo, Paris, 1572.]

SIR,--Being on the point of commending to you and to posterity the memoryof the late Etienne de la Boetie, as well for his extreme virtue as forthe singular affection which he bore to me, it struck me as anindiscretion very serious in its results, and meriting some coercion fromour laws, the practice which often prevails of robbing virtue of glory,its faithful associate, in order to confer it, in accordance with ourprivate interests and without discrimination, on the first comer; seeingthat our two principal guiding reins are reward and punishment, whichonly touch us properly, and as men, through the medium of honour anddishonour, forasmuch as these penetrate the mind, and come home to ourmost intimate feelings: just where animals themselves are susceptible,more or less, to all other kinds of recompense and corporal chastisement.Moreover, it is well to notice that the custom of praising virtue, evenin those who are no longer with us, impalpable as it is to them, servesas a stimulant to the living to imitate their example; just as capitalsentences are carried out by the law, more for the sake of warning toothers, than in relation to those who suffer. Now, commendation and itsopposite being analogous as regards effects, we cannot easily denythe fact, that although the law prohibits one man from slandering thereputation of another, it does not prevent us from bestowing reputationwithout cause. This pernicious licence in respect to the distribution ofpraise, has formerly been confined in its area of operations; and it maybe the reason why poetry once lost favour with the more judicious.However this may be, it cannot be concealed that the vice of falsehood isone very unbecoming in gentleman, let it assume what guise it will.

As for that personage of whom I am speaking to you, sir he leads me faraway indeed from this kind of language; for the danger in his case isnot, lest I should lend him anything, but that I might take somethingfrom him; and it is his ill-fortune that, while he has supplied me, sofar as ever a man could, with just and obvious opportunities forcommendation, I find myself unable and unqualified to render it to him--I, who am his debtor for so many vivid communications, and who alone haveit in my power to answer for a million of accomplishments, perfections,and virtues, latent (thanks to his unkind stars) in so noble a soul. Forthe nature of things having (I know not how) permitted that truth, fairand acceptable--as it may be of itself, is only embraced where there arearts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds, I see myself sowanting, both in authority to support my simple testimony, and in theeloquence requisite for lending it value and weight, that I was on theeve of relinquishing the task, having nothing of his which would enableme to exhibit to the world a proof of his genius and knowledge.

In truth, sir, having been overtaken by his fate in the flower of hisage, and in the full enjoyment of the most vigorous health, it had beenhis design to publish some day works which would have demonstrated toposterity what sort of a man he was; and, peradventure, he wasindifferent enough to fame, having formed such a plan in his head, toproceed no further in it. But I have come to the conclusion, that it wasfar more excusable in him to bury with him all his rare endowments, thanit would be on my part to bury also with me the knowledge of them which Ihad acquired from him; and, therefore, having collected with care all theremains which I found scattered here and there among his papers, I intendto distribute them so as to recommend his memory to as many persons aspossible, selecting the most suitable and worthy of my acquaintance, andthose whose testimony might do him greatest honour: such as you, sir, whomay very possibly have had some knowledge of him during his life, butassuredly too slight to discover the perfect extent of his worth.Posterity may credit me, if it chooses, when I swear upon my conscience,that I knew and saw him to be such as, all things considered, I couldneither desire nor imagine a genius surpassing his.

I beg you very humbly, sir, not only to take his name under your generalprotection, but also these ten or twelve French stanzas, which laythemselves, as of necessity, under shadow of your patronage. For I willnot disguise from you, that their publication was deferred, upon theappearance of his other writings, under the pretext (as it was allegedyonder at Paris) that they were too crude to come to light. You willjudge, sir, how much truth there is in this; and since it is thought thathereabout nothing can be produced in our own dialect but what isbarbarous and unpolished, it falls to you, who, besides your rank as thefirst house in Guienne, indeed down from your ancestors, possess everyother sort of qualification, to establish, not merely by your example,but by your authoritative testimony, that such is not always the case:the more so that, though 'tis more natural with the Gascons to act thantalk, yet sometimes they employ the tongue more than the arm, and wit inplace of valour.

For my own part; sir, it is not in my way to judge of such matters; but Ihave heard persons who are supposed to understand them, say that thesestanzas are not only worthy to be presented in the market-place, but,independently of that, as regards beauty and wealth of invention, theyare full of marrow and matter as any compositions of the kind, which haveappeared in our language. Naturally each workman feels himself morestrong in some special part his art, and those are to be regarded as mostfortunate, who lay hands on the noblest, for all the parts essential tothe construction of any whole are not equally precious. We findelsewhere, perhaps, greater delicacy phrase, greater softness and harmonyof language; but imaginative grace, and in the store of pointed wit, I donot think he has been surpassed; and we should take the account that hemade these things neither his occupation nor his study, and that hescarcely took a pen in his hand more than once a year, as is shown by thevery slender quantity of his remains. For you see here, sir, green woodand dry, without any sort of selection, all that has come into mypossession; insomuch that there are among the rest efforts even of hisboyhood. In point of fact, he seems to have written them merely to showthat he was capable of dealing with all subjects: for otherwise,thousands of times, in the course of ordinary conversation, I have heardthings drop from him infinitely more worthy of being admired, infinitelymore worthy of being preserved.

Such, sir, is what justice and affection, forming in this instance a rareconjunction, oblige me to say of this great and good man; and if I haveat all offended by the freedom which I have taken in addressing myself toyou on such a subject at such a length, be pleased to recollect that theprincipal result of greatness and eminence is to lay one open toimportunate appeals on behalf of the rest of the world. Herewith, afterdesiring you to accept my affectionate devotion to your service,I beseech God to vouchsafe you, sir, a fortunate and prolonged life.From Montaigne, this 1st of September 1570.--Your obedient servant,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

To Mademoiselle de MONTAIGNE, my Wife.--[Printed as a preface to the"Consolation of Plutarch to his Wife," pub. fished by Montaigne, withseveral other tracts by La Boetie, about 1571.]

MY WIFE,--You understand well that it is not proper for a man of theworld, according to the rules of this our time, to continue to court andcaress you; for they say that a sensible person may take a wife indeed,but that to espouse her is to act like a fool. Let them talk; I adherefor my part the custom of the good old days; I also wear my hair as itused to be then; and, in truth, novelty costs this poor country up to thepresent moment so dear (and I do not know whether we have reached thehighest pitch yet), that everywhere and in everything I renounce thefashion. Let us live, my wife, you and I, in the old French method.Now, you may recollect that the late M. de la Boetie, my brother andinseparable companion, gave me, on his death-bed, all his books andpapers, which have remained ever since the most precious part of myeffects. I do not wish to keep them niggardly to myself alone, nor do Ideserve to have the exclusive use of them; so that I have resolved tocommunicate them to my friends; and because I have none, I believe, moreparticularly intimate you, I send you the Consolatory Letter written byPlutarch to his Wife, translated by him into French; regretting much thatfortune has made it so suitable a present you, and that, having had butone child, and that a daughter, long looked for, after four years of yourmarried life it was your lot to lose her in the second year of her age.But I leave to Plutarch the duty of comforting you, acquainting you withyour duty herein, begging you to put your faith in him for my sake; forhe will reveal to you my own ideas, and will express the matter farbetter than I should myself. Hereupon, my wife, I commend myself veryheartily to your good will, and pray God to have you in His keeping.From Paris, this 10th September 1570.--Your good husband,

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.

VIII.

To Monsieur DUPUY,--[This is probably the Claude Dupuy, born at Paris in1545, and one of the fourteen judges sent into Guienne after the treatyof Fleix in 1580. It was perhaps under these circumstances thatMontaigne addressed to him the present letter.]--the King's Councillor inhis Court and Parliament of Paris.

MONSIEUR,--The business of the Sieur de Verres, a prisoner, who isextremely well known to me, deserves, in the arrival at a decision,the exercise of the clemency natural to you, if, in the public interest,you can fairly call it into play. He has done a thing not onlyexcusable, according to the military laws of this age, but necessary and(as we are of opinion) commendable. He committed the act, without doubt,unwillingly and under pressure; there is no other passage of his lifewhich is open to reproach. I beseech you, sir, to lend the matter yourattentive consideration; you will find the character of it as I representit to you. He is persecuted on this crime, in a way which is far worsethan the offence itself. If it is likely to be of use to him, I desireto inform you that he is a man brought up in my house, related to severalrespectable families, and a person who, having led an honourable life,is my particular friend. By saving him you lay me under an extremeobligation. I beg you very humbly to regard him as recommended by me,and, after kissing your hands, I pray God, sir, to grant you a long andhappy life. From Castera, this 23 d of April [1580]. Your affectionateservant,MONTAIGNE.

IX.

To the Jurats of Bordeaux.--[Published from the original among thearchives of the town of Bordeaux, M. Gustave Brunet in the Bulletin duBibliophile, July 1839.]

GENTLEMEN,--I trust that the journey of Monsieur de Cursol will be ofadvantage to the town. Having in hand a case so just and so favourable,you did all in your power to put the business in good trim; and mattersbeing so well situated, I beg you to excuse my absence for some littletime longer, and I will abridge my stay so far as the pressure of myaffairs permits. I hope that the delay will be short; however, you willkeep me, if you please, in your good grace, and will command me, if theoccasion shall arise, in employing me in the public service and in yours.Monsieur de Cursol has also written to me and apprised me of his journey.I humbly commend myself to you, and pray God, gentlemen, to grant youlong and happy life. From Montaigne, this 21st of May 1582. Your humblebrother and servant,MONTAIGNE.

X.

To the same.--[The original is among the archives of Toulouse.]

GENTLEMEN,--I have taken my fair share of the satisfaction which youannounce to me as feeling at the good despatch of your business, asreported to you by your deputies, and I regard it as a favourable signthat you have made such an auspicious commencement of the year. I hopeto join you at the earliest convenient opportunity. I recommend myselfvery humbly to your gracious consideration, and pray God to grant you,gentlemen, a happy and long life. From Montaigne, this 8th February1585. Your humble brother and servant,MONTAIGNE.

XI.

To the same.

GENTLEMEN,--I have here received news of you from M. le Marechal. I willnot spare either my life or anything else for your service, and willleave it to your judgment whether the assistance I might be able torender by my presence at the forthcoming election, would be worth therisk I should run by going into the town, seeing the bad state it is in,--[This refers to the plague then raging, and which carried off 14,000persons at Bordeaux.]--particularly for people coming away from so finean air as this is where I am. I will draw as near to you on Wednesday asI can, that is, to Feuillas, if the malady has not reached that place,where, as I write to M. de la Molte, I shall be very pleased to have thehonour of seeing one of you to take your directions, and relieve myselfof the credentials which M. le Marechal will give me for you all:commending myself hereupon humbly to your good grace, and praying God togrant you, gentlemen, long and happy life. At Libourne, this 30th ofJuly 1585. Your humble servant and brother,MONTAIGNE.

XII.--["According to Dr. Payen, this letter belongs to 1588. Itsauthenticity has been called in question; but wrongly, in our opinion.See 'Documents inedits', 1847, p. 12."--Note in 'Essais', ed. Paris,1854, iv. 381. It does not appear to whom the letter was addressed.]

MONSEIGNEUR,--You have heard of our baggage being taken from us under oureyes in the forest of Villebois: then, after a good deal of discussionand delay, of the capture being pronounced illegal by the Prince. Wedared not, however, proceed on our way, from an uncertainty as to thesafety of our persons, which should have been clearly expressed on ourpassports. The League has done this, M. de Barrant and M. de laRochefocault; the storm has burst on me, who had my money in my box. Ihave recovered none of it, and most of my papers and cash--[The Frenchword is hardes, which St. John renders things. But compare Chambers's"Domestic Annals of Scotland," 2d ed. i. 48.]--remain in theirpossession. I have not seen the Prince. Fifty were lost . . . as forthe Count of Thorigny, he lost some ver plate and a few articles ofclothing. He diverged from his route to pay a visit to the mourningladies at Montresor, where are the remains of his two brothers and hisgrandmother, and came to us again in this town, whence we shall resumeour journey shortly. The journey to Normandy is postponed. The King hasdespatched MM. De Bellieure and de la Guiche to M. de Guise to summon himto court; we shall be there on Thursday.

From Orleans, this 16th of February, in the morning [1588-9?].--Your veryhumble servant,MONTAIGNE.

XIII.

To Mademoiselle PAULMIER.--[This letter, at the time of the publicationof the variorum edition of 1854, appears to have been in private hands.See vol. iv. p. 382.]

MADEMOISELLE,--My friends know that, from the first moment of ouracquaintance, I have destined a copy of my book for you; for I feel thatyou have done it much honour. The courtesy of M. Paulmier would depriveme of the pleasure of giving it to you now, for he has obliged me since agreat deal beyond the worth of my book. You will accept it then, if youplease, as having been yours before I owed it to you, and will confer onme the favour of loving it, whether for its own sake or for mine; and Iwill keep my debt to M. Paulmier undischarged, that I may requite him, ifI have at some other time the means of serving him.

XIV.

To the KING, HENRY IV.--[The original is in the French national library,in the Dupuy collection. It was first discovered by M. Achille Jubinal,who printed it with a facsimile of the entire autograph, in 1850. St.John gives the date wrongly as the 1st January 1590.]

SIRE, It is to be above the weight and crowd of your great and importantaffairs, to know, as you do, how to lend yourself, and attend to smallmatters in their turn, according to the duty of your royal dignity, whichexposes you at all times to every description and degree of person andemployment. Yet, that your Majesty should have deigned to consider myletter, and direct a reply to be made to it, I prefer to owe, less toyour strong understanding, than to your kindness of heart. I have alwayslooked forward to your enjoyment of your present fortune, and you mayrecollect that, even when I had to make confession of itto my cure, Iviewed your successes with satisfaction: now, with the greater proprietyand freedom, I embrace them affectionately. They serve you where you areas positive matters of fact; but they serve us here no less by the famewhich they diffuse: the echo carries as much weight as the blow. Weshould not be able to derive from the justice of your cause such powerfularguments for the maintenance and reduction of your subjects, as we dofrom the reports of the success of your undertaking; and then I have toassure your Majesty, that the recent changes to your advantage, which youobserve hereabouts, the prosperous issue of your proceedings at Dieppe,have opportunely seconded the honest zeal and marvellous prudence of M.the Marshal de Matignon, from whom I flatter myself that you do notreceive day by day accounts of such good and signal services withoutremembering my assurances and expectations. I look to the next summer,not only for fruits which we may eat, but for those to grow out of ourcommon tranquillity, and that it will pass over our heads with the sameeven tenor of happiness, dissipating, like its predecessors, all the finepromises with which your adversaries sustain the spirits of theirfollowers. The popular inclinations resemble a tidal wave; if thecurrent once commences in your favour, it will go on of its own force tothe end. I could have desired much that the private gain of the soldiersof your army, and the necessity for satisfying them, had not deprivedyou, especially in this principal town, of the glorious credit of treatingyour mutinous subjects, in the midst of victory, with greater clemencythan their own protectors, and that, as distinguished from a passing andusurped repute, you could have shown them to be really your own, by theexercise of a protection truly paternal and royal. In the conduct ofsuch affairs as you have in hand, men are obliged to have recourse tounusual expedients. It is always seen that they are surmounted by theirmagnitude and difficulty; it not being found easy to complete theconquest by arms and force, the end has been accomplished by clemency andgenerosity, excellent lures to draw men particularly towards the just andlegitimate side. If there is to be severity and punishment, let it bedeferred till success has been assured. A great conqueror of past timesboasts that he gave his enemies as great an inducement to love him, ashis friends. And here we feel already some effect of the favourableimpression produced upon our rebellious towns by the contrast betweentheir rude treatment, and that of those which are loyal to you. Desiringyour Majesty a happiness more tangible and less hazardous, and that youmay be beloved rather than feared by your people, and believing that yourwelfare and theirs are of necessity knit together, I rejoice to think thatthe progress which you make is one towards more practicable conditions ofpeace, as well as towards victory!

Sire, your letter of the last of November came to my hand only just now,when the time which it pleased you to name for meeting you at Tours hadalready passed. I take it as a singular favour that you should havedeigned to desire a visit from so useless a person, but one who is whollyyours, and more so even by affection than from duty. You have acted verycommendably in adapting yourself, in the matter of external forms, toyour new fortunes; but the preservation of your old affability andfrankness in private intercourse is entitled to an equal share of praise.You have condescended to take thought for my age, no less than for thedesire which I have to see you, where you may be at rest from theselaborious agitations. Will not that be soon at Paris, Sire? and maynothing prevent me from presenting myself there!--Your very humble andvery obedient servant and subject,MONTAIGNE.

From Montaigne, this 18th of January [1590].

XV.To the same.--[ This letter is also in the national collection, among theDupuy papers. It was first printed in the "Journal de l'InstructionPublique," 4th November 1846.]

SIRE,--The letter which it pleased your majesty to write to me on the20th of July, was not delivered to me till this morning, and found melaid up with a very violent tertian ague, a complaint very common in thispart of the country during the last month. Sire, I consider myselfgreatly honoured by the receipt of your commands, and I have not omittedto communicate to M. the Marshal de Matignon three times mostemphatically my intention and obligation to proceed to him, and even sofar as to indicate the route by which I proposed to join him secretly, ifhe thought proper. Having received no answer, I consider that he hasweighed the difficulty and risk of the journey to me. Sire, your Majestydill do me the favour to believe, if you please, that I shall nevercomplain of the expense on occasions where I should not hesitate todevote my life. I have never derived any substantial benefit whateverfrom the bounty of kings, which I have neither sought nor merited; norhave I had any recompense for the services which I have performed forthem: whereof your majesty is in part aware. What I have done for yourpredecessors I shall do still more readily for you. I am as rich, Sire,as I desire to be. When I shall have exhausted my purse in attendance onyour Majesty at Paris, I will take the liberty to tell you, and then, ifyou should regard me as worthy of being retained any longer in yoursuite, you will find me more modest in my claims upon you than thehumblest of your officers.

MONSEIGNEUR,--I have received this morning your letter, which I havecommunicated to M. de Gourgues, and we have dined together at the houseof M.[the mayor] of Bourdeaux. As to the inconvenience of transportingthe money named in your memorandum, you see how difficult a thing it isto provide for; but you may be sure that we shall keep as close a watchover it as possible. I used every exertion to discover the man of whomyou spoke. He has not been here; and M. de Bordeaux has shown me aletter in which he mentions that he could not come to see the Director ofBordeaux, as he intended, having been informed that you mistrust him.The letter is of the day before yesterday. If I could have found him, Imight perhaps have pursued the gentler course, being uncertain of yourviews; but I entreat you nevertheless to feel no manner of doubt that Irefuse to carry out any wishes of yours, and that, where your commandsare concerned, I know no distinction of person or matter. I hope thatyou have in Guienne many as well affected to you as I am. They reportthat the Nantes galleys are advancing towards Brouage. M. the Marshal deBiron has not yet left. Those who were charged to convey the message toM. d'Usee say that they cannot find him; and I believe that, if he hasbeen here, he is so no longer. We keep a vigilant eye on our gates andguards, and we look after them a little more attentively in your absence,which makes me apprehensive, not merely on account of the preservation ofthe town, but likewise for your oven sake, knowing that the enemies ofthe king feel how necessary you are to his service, and how ill we shouldprosper without you. I am afraid that, in the part where you are, youwill be overtaken by so many affairs requiring your attention on everyside, that it will take you a long time and involve great difficultybefore you have disposed of everything. If there is any important news,I will despatch an express at once, and you may conclude that nothing isstirring if you do not hear from me: at the same time begging you to bearin mind that movements of this kind are wont to be so sudden andunexpected that, if they occur, they will grasp me by the throat, beforethey say a word. I will do what I can to collect news, and for thispurpose I will make a point of visiting and seeing men of every shade ofopinion. Down to the present time nothing is stirring. M. de Londel hasseen me this morning, and we have been arranging for some advances forthe place, where I shall go to-morrow morning. Since I began thisletter, I have learnt from Chartreux that two gentlemen, describingthemselves as in the service of M. de Guise, and coming from Agen, havepassed near Chartreux; but I was not able to ascertain which road theyhave taken. They are expecting you at Agen. The Sieur de Mauvesin cameas far as Canteloup, and thence returned, having got some intelligence.I am in search of one Captain Rous, to whom . . . wrote, trying todraw him into his cause by all sorts of promises. The rumour of the twoNantes galleys ready to descend on Brouage is confirmed as certain; theycarry two companies of foot. M. de Mercure is at Nantes. The Sieur dela Courbe said to M. the President Nesmond that M. d'Elbeuf is on thisside of Angiers, and lodges with his father. He is drawing towards LowerPoictou with 4000 foot and 400 or 500 horse, having been reinforced bythe troops of M. de Brissac and others, and M. de Mercure is to join him.The report goes also that M. du Maine is about to take the command of allthe forces they have collected in Auvergne, and that he will cross LeForet to advance on Rouergue and us, that is to say, on the King ofNavarre, against whom all this is being directed. M. de Lansac is atBourg, and has two war vessels, which remain in attendance on him. Hisfunctions are naval. I tell you what I learn, and mix up together themore or less probable hearsay of the town with actual matter of fact,that you may be in possession of everything. I beg you most humbly toreturn directly affairs may allow you to do so, and assure you that,meanwhile, we shall not spare our labour, or (if that were necessary) ourlife, to maintain the king's authority throughout. Monseigneur, I kissyour hands very respectfully, and pray God to have you in His keeping.